


Swan's Song

by keelahselai



Series: Wanderlust [2]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Agatha's Song, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash, Smoking, Violins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keelahselai/pseuds/keelahselai
Summary: Months after her expulsion from the Vault, Elle loses someone else.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey I finally posted in the Butch/LW tag again like I said! Hey hey this isn't what I started literally months ago!  
> Alright so backstory - I got super turned around on my first playthrough on the way to Megaton and accidentally found Agatha's house after managing to survive the way there. She really reminded me of my granmama and I was Weak so I took her quest to get the violin. This leads to my headcanon that Elle started learning violin from Agatha afterward and kinda got to see her as a grandma figure and well. I had to ruin it for everyone.

It was the slamming of a door that woke him. Well, not exactly a _slam,_ per se, it was just a really excessively creaky door which desperately needed to be oiled opening and shutting almost immediately that put Butch on as high alert as he could be after being metaphorically shaken out of sleep.

Elle had been out for a few days and he'd been as worried as he let himself be that it was fine. Occasionally she'd slip out with hardly a word, cryptically announcing she'd be away for the day and would you do the goddamn dishes for once, DeLoria? But she'd never been away this long and well, he forced himself to play it cool. Butch checked his Pip-Boy -- 2:34 in the morning. Vault Butch might've complained about the earliness or just rolled back asleep in annoyance. Watching Elle take more than one feral ghoul down with the gun permanently stashed under her pillow in the night was more than enough to let paranoia have this one; he even took the pillow gun thing right out of her book, as well as becoming a much lighter sleeper who took being woken up by strange noises in the night with a pinch of anxiety. Megaton was as safe as you could get in the Capital Wasteland if you weren't a full-time member of the Brotherhood of Steel, but it definitely wasn't the Vault.

Gripping his aforementioned pillow gun, Butch quietly pulled himself out of bed and slipped on his Tunnel Snakes jacket after a moment of hesitation. Creeping down the scrap metal staircase, he held the 10 millimeter high and poised to fire. The lower level was clear, and whatever had opened the door hadn't had enough time to make it to the second story before he was up. He glanced at the kitchen a second time before making toward the door to check outside. The metal flooring beneath his feet groaned just before the door and he tensed before pulling it open.

To his relief and somewhat embarrassment, the alleged intruder standing just outside the doorway was the Lone Wanderer.

The light above their door illuminated the trails of smoke from the end of her lit cigarette held in a pale hand that if looked at closely, was visibly trembling. Elle brought it to her lips and took a long drag, exhaling a plume of smoke a moment later and watched it with emotionless brown eyes billow up to greet the slightly flickering light. Butch lowered the gun to the point of stashing it in his waistband, realizing the potential threat was nonexistent. 

"Should've kept a bead out the door while you opened it," Elle said offhandedly without looking away from the sky. "Coulda shot you when you stepped outta cover like that." She mimed a shooting motion with her free hand before finally turning her head to look at him. She looked haggard, to say the least. Her face, already fairly populated in freckles, was dirtier than it usually was after their excursions and to his bewilderment, there were twin track marks through the dirt clearly defining where tears fell down her face.

Once, he'd seen her cry out here and that was after egging her into explaining what happened with Project Purity. But now? Butch was totally thrown for a loop.

"Elle, what-?" he began, correcting himself off immediately with, "What's up?" Nonchalant was good. Nonchalant was business as usual.

Her chin puckered and eyebrows drew close in an almost pained expression. Nonchalant, apparently, wasn't good.

Elle took another drag off her cigarette before speaking again, faintly smiling now which would be nice - _'I guess,'_ Butch aggressively appended to that train of thought - had the expression in her eyes been less distraught. "She's gone," she said simply, robotically. "You know the other radio station, the one that plays the classical music?"

"Uh, I think?" He racked his mind and vaguely remembered another station besides Three Dog's. Just after he left the Vault, Butch had just heard a sole violin playing and immediately flipped to GNR; he really was more of a rocker than a classical music fan.

"Just after I left the Vault, I got lost on the way to Megaton and found this little old lady's house. She let me stay there for the night once she figured I wasn't a raider, and just asked me the next day to find her great-great however many grandma's violin from some Vault to the west. Not as far as the Pitt, but it was way out there. And since I hadn't turned into a Wasteland asshole yet," she gestured with her hand, flicking cigarette ash to the ground with the motion, "I did it for her. Fought a hell of a lot of mirelurks, but I got it back for her and she started broadcasting her playing it afterward."

"For a while, I visited her to check up with her and by the time I'd reopened the Vault, she was like what I think grandmas must be like to me and a while before that, she'd started teaching me on her violin. She'd get frustrated I don't practice, but where else would you find one?" Elle forced out a laugh. "I told her I was traveling far south before going to Project Purity. I didn't..." she swallowed hard, squinching her eyes shut. She cleared her throat. "When I actually woke up, I couldn't meet up with her so soon after. So I went to Rivet City, and you know the rest."

Butch had remained quiet throughout the story, taking in what she was saying. "Is that where you'd disappear to those times?" he asked slowly.  
The Lone Wanderer nodded, blonde hair bobbing with the motion and to his dismay, she looked close to tears again.

"Would you mind..." she began, having to stop midway to take a deep breath and spare her pride. "Would you mind if I play tonight? For her?" 

He finally noticed the gray case resting at her feet and all the pieces finally fell together.

"I mean, it probably wouldn't be very good, but-"

"Hey, do whatever, man. I'll listen too, if you want." As much as he valued his own pride, Butch knew sometimes what to say. Maybe. _Maybe._

She closed her eyes in a long blink. "Thank you," she managed in a croak. She let the butt left of the cigarette fall to the rusted metal floor and looked uncertain. "Can I-?"

It clicked for Butch what she was asking for far sooner than one would've expected of him and awkwardly, wordlessly, he shuffled forward and Elle met him in an embrace, tightly gripping the leather jacket as she sobbed for yet another lost family member. 

He definitely wouldn't have done this in the past, maybe giving her an awkward back pat to console her grief. He probably would've done some heinous crap in the Vault, and frankly speaking present day Butch would've curbstomped himself for it and maybe - just maybe - that freaked him out a lot. He rubbed circles with his thumb onto her back, humming half-consolations while Elle remained where she was. It wasn't the time at all, but his stomach flipped at the implications. He could confidently say to anyone that she was his best friend, someone he trusted his life to daily without a second thought, but looking back at their relationship as younger teens - it was mind boggling. All he could think was how it must look from an outsider's perspective on the scene at 2:40 something in the goddamn morning.

Elle eventually calmed down, body wracking sobs growing more and more calm and with a shaky breath, peeled herself away from his tear-streaked jacket. Her face was a splotchy, dirty mess from it all, but she looked more stable than when he'd stepped outside. The blonde leaned down, hooking the case on bent fingers and opened the door, seemingly too embarrassed to make eye contact with him. 

"If you really want to listen, I'm sorry for how it sounds. I haven't practiced it as much and my fingers are kinda stiff," she said a bit awkwardly, glancing over her shoulder at the ground.

She got set up fairly quickly and Butch leaned against the door as he watched her take a steadying breath before drawing the bow across the strings. It probably didn't sound as masterful as the radio, but to his untrained ear, it sounded just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> From outside Moriarty's, Jericho stubbed out a cigarette on the wall, befuddled by what he was seeing. Those Vault kids - he could've sworn they hated each other - looked like there were eating face just... out in the open like that. It didn't look like that greaser kid had a shirt on beneath his seemingly irremovable jacket, either.  
> "Get a goddamn room!" he shouted in irritation.
> 
> \---  
> The song I sorta had in mind for her to play was Apotheosis/I Was Born For This btw if you haven't listened 10/10 recommend the game Journey and its soundtrack


End file.
